Author: John Hanno

The Holland Sentinel

Ray Buursma: Short-sighted GOP moves against teachers created a mass exodus

Ray Buursma – February 18, 2022

Michigan’s Teacher Shortage

This could easily be the new mantra directed at today’s teachers, hurled not by students, but by former politicians and certain segments of today’s society.

Michigan is witnessing the effects of a decade-old set of legislation initiated by former Gov. Snyder and GOP legislators intent on hammering educators. Their efforts produced the conditions for today’s teacher shortage, a situation any reasonable person could have foreseen.

The teacher shortage is so severe that Gov. Whitmer is dangling a couple thousand bucks as bonus money to entice college students to enter the profession and retain teachers currently serving but considering leaving.

The teacher shortage is so severe that substitute teachers need have only two years of college education, which took the place of needing three years, which took the place of needing four years, which took the place of needing a teaching certificate.

The shortage is so severe that bus drivers and support staff without college education may serve as substitute teachers. Today, a person needs more training to transport students in a bus than to teach students in a school.

The shortage of teachers is so severe that Michigan’ legislators are considering allowing college education students without a degree or teaching certificate to teach classes of their own, as if they were already degreed and certified.

If the state of Michigan’s teacher pool is not empty enough now, wait and see what it will look like in five years. The pool is drying, and Snyder and GOP legislators are responsible for the evaporation.

This downward trend began when a businessman-turned-politician and GOP lawmakers threatened to cut $350 per student from any district not adopting Snyder’s “best practices” — a set of actions Snyder demanded districts implement. That was the first salvo against educators.

Others followed.

Teachers, who had taken meager pay increases to retain favorable insurance benefits, learned they were required to “contribute” 20 percent of their insurance premiums. Of course, no salary increases were offered to offset the raises they had previously foregone to keep their insurance policies strong.

Teachers entered the profession receiving low salaries but counted on yearly step increases. Then they watched Michigan’s Republican government pass legislation that gave school districts power to withhold step increases. School districts did just that.

Teachers, who had continued working while their union hashed out contracts, found themselves unable to receive retroactive pay hikes after contracts were settled. New state laws forbade such increases. Superintendents and board members had little motivation to settle contracts. The longer they waited to sign new contracts, the less they needed to pay teachers cost of living increases.

Teachers, whose unions once could bargain until contracts were reached, learned school boards had been given power to impose contracts upon teachers. Board members could simply declare negotiations at an impasse and force teachers to accept the district’s most recent offer.

Teachers, whose unions had been able to collaborate with districts to develop evaluation processes and standards, lost that ability and learned they had no say in developing professional evaluations.

Teachers once knew they would receive a pension upon retirement, but new teachers no longer have that benefit. GOP legislator Arlan Meekhof orchestrated that fiasco.

All these short-sighted actions have reaped what any level headed person could have predicted — practicing teachers are happy to retire as soon as they can, and college students are reluctant to enter the profession. The teacher shortage is beginning, and its severity will only increase.

If these disincentives were not enough to demotivate educators, add the hardships of teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic and the frustrations of serving as whipping boys for parents who dislike COVID regulations. Many teachers have had enough, and college students are reluctant to enter the profession. Enrollments in Michigan teacher preparation programs have dropped substantially.

If parents are not yet frustrated with the inability of their children’s schools to hire enough competent educators, they will be soon.

The wave of shortages is coming. It has already hit lower socioeconomic districts (poor people always bear the brunt of society’s problems first) like Detroit and Grand Rapids. Eventually it will make its way throughout the state. Current legislators are trying to stop the flood with sponges and mops, but those efforts will be futile.

As frustrations mount, remember who bears responsibility. The anti-teacher initiatives were launched by Snyder and GOP legislators. They are the culprits, and the citizens who elected them also bear responsibility.

Daily Beast

If Putin Pursues ‘Grey Zone’ Tactics in Ukraine, He’ll Be Tough to Stop

David Rothkopf – February 18, 2022

President Joe Biden has stated he believes Vladimir Putin has made the decision to invade Ukraine. Now comes the hard part.

The Biden administration and Western allies have done exemplary work, thus far, in their response to the unprecedented threat to Ukrainian and European security posed by Russia.

It has required multiple levels of diplomacy, from the leader-to-leader exchanges like the one between President Joe Biden and key allies on Friday to the active roles played by Vice President Kamala Harris, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, senior State Department officials, top officials from the Pentagon, the National Security Council, and the intelligence community. It has taken weeks to orchestrate a unified, forceful response to Russia’s menacing of its neighbor, and also to work on a constructive dialogue with Moscow.

It is not to be minimized. Indeed, in and of itself, it has been a remarkable display of statecraft. But what comes next will be even more challenging.

What Happens to Ukraine Matters to Every American

Right now, Vladimir Putin seems to have boxed himself in. In the view of senior U.S. government officials as of Friday, the Russian leader—perhaps fearful of looking weak after being faced down by Western leadership he clearly underestimated—is committed to a massive invasion of Ukraine.

In the event an invasion is launched, sweeping sanctions against Russia will be triggered that very instant. Significant civilian casualties will likely cast Putin as a war criminal in the eyes of most of the planet. And he will need to quickly withdraw or risk being bogged down in a protracted and costly guerilla war—as he undoubtedly remembers the Soviet Union’s war in Afghanistan was both horribly unpopular and hastened the USSR’s demise.

That’s why many analysts expect Putin to seek a path that limits its downside while delivering enough upside so that he can claim “victory.”

In the event of a full invasion, that means getting out as swiftly as possible. One way that could play out is he invades, seizes the two regions for which “separatists” have been fighting for the past eight years, and perhaps also the “land bridge” that would connect Crimea to Russia. If he can destroy or severely weaken Ukraine’s army during this rapidly unfolding scenario, all the better for the Kremlin. Similarly, if he’s able to trigger a change in the Ukrainian government that was seen as more pro-Russian, it would be a clean sweep of his core objectives.

If Putin could move tidily in and out of Ukraine very quickly, in just a few days, it would put a strain on the Western alliance. That’s because key European countries, like Germany, do not want to endure the protracted economic costs to their own countries that would be directly tied to sanctions against Russia.

Then there are other paths available to Putin that might well produce even lower-cost gains for him, options that would be very difficult for the Western alliance to manage. To borrow a phrase often used with regard to China’s activities in the South China Sea, many of these paths lead into what can be called “The Grey Zone.”

China’s Grey Zone involves extending its claimed boundaries in coastal waters, using everything from extended naval patrols to fishing fleets to building artificial islands. As cited by the Lowy Institute, Australia’s 2020 Defense Strategic Update described the activities as “military and non-military forms of assertiveness and coercion aimed at achieving strategic goals without provoking military conflict.”

This is not a new concept to the Russians, of course. Their initial invasion of Ukraine involved so-called “active measures” and “hybrid warfare” including deploying troops without insignias on their uniforms—“little green men,” who could fight Russia’s fight without being directly associated with the Kremlin. Brookings Institution scholar Thomas Wright has said Russia’s already using “all measures short of war,” including cyberattacks, disinformation, and murdering dissidents on both domestic and foreign soil.

The price of modern warfare has grown so great that few want to incur it, making the thresholds by which opponents can be provoked into conflict pushed higher and higher. Even a full-fledged invasion of Ukraine was seen as insufficient to provoke a military response from NATO for just these reasons. That’s why our counter-measures also fall into the category of measures short of war.

Putin is a master of the Grey Zone, his comfort zone. Were he to stop short of invasion, or only conduct a very limited one, he might be able to forestall the worst of the West’s countermeasures while still being able to make additional gains.

He and Belarus president Alexander Lukashenko have indicated they will collaborate more closely in the future. That could include positioning not just Russian troops in Belarus but perhaps Russian nukes. Putin could also launch cyberattacks or increase hybrid warfare or other covert measures in Ukraine without actually crossing the West’s “red lines” that will trigger the big sanctions. He could further stick his thumb in the eye of the U.S. with new efforts to cooperate in our hemisphere, perhaps, for example, with Venezuela.

Similarly, Putin could withdraw a number of the troops he has positioned around Ukraine but still keep a substantial force there and explain it is a counterpoint to NATO redeployments.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Russia, Ukraine, and NATO’s Rebirth

Senior American officials with whom I have spoken say they’ve considered these scenarios. They recognize them as particularly thorny. While they are confident they can maintain the cohesiveness of the Western alliance in the face of them, they also acknowledge it won’t be easy. It will be difficult to maintain sanctions or instability that produces rising energy prices—or any economic hardship—in Europe or the U.S.

In almost every imaginable scenario—a massive invasion, or something smaller, or a withdrawal accompanied by substantial activities in the Grey Zone—the diplomacy required of the U.S. and other leaders within the Western alliance will only become more difficult in the weeks and months ahead.

The active, high-level interaction with allies that the State Department has practiced will have to remain a top priority. After three decades adrift, NATO is once again clear about its purpose. And following a period of missteps, hesitation, and worse, the U.S. has once again established itself as the leader within the alliance.

But the challenges posed by Putin are unlikely to end with whatever military action he does or does not launch in the days ahead. The alliance is going to have to be better prepared to deal with not just traditional threats and provocations, but those that will likely escalate in the Grey Zone—where most future global rivalries will present themselves.

The Week

The naked ambition of Trumpist Republicans

Joel Mathis, Contributing Writer – February 21, 2022

So how did Josh Mandel get to be Josh Mandel?

It’s a reasonable question. Mandel leads the pack of Republicans seeking the party’s nomination for the open U.S. Senate seat from Ohio, and he’s achieved that rank with a series of ever-more-outrageous stances apparently designed to ensure no human being alive can flank him from the right. He’s suggested closing public schools and leaving public education to churches and synagogues. He’s declared that the “separation of church and state is a myth.” And, of course, he’s embraced the Big Lie that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from Donald Trump. It’s not been so long since a politician with Mandel’s profile would’ve been consigned to the party’s fringes. Now he’s the man to beat.

Naturally, journalists are trying to figure the guy out. “Josh Mandel could be Ohio’s next senator. So what does he believe?” Politico asked last week in a profile. The New York Times offered a similar take: “The Senate candidate was a rising Republican when he abandoned his moderate roots. Now, those who have watched his transformation wonder if his rhetoric reflects who he really is.” Both stories echoed last November’s conclusions from The Atlantic, which examined the question and labeled Mandel a “genuine phony.”

“He doesn’t act the way he used to act, and he doesn’t talk the way he used to talk, say so many Democrats and Republicans alike,” Politico reported. “And they’re right.”

Maybe. But Mandel doesn’t really seem like much of a mystery, does he? He’s an ambitious guy who has decided that becoming fully Trumpist is his best route to power. That’s it. End of story. Everything else is just commentary.

Still, the recent round of Josh Mandel profiles is interesting, if only because the stories represent a minor genre of journalism birthed by the Trump Era. Reports of this type look at an up-and-coming white guy conservative who used to be perceived as smart and thoughtful, or moderate, or perhaps simply decent — guys like Mandel, his Ohio rival J.D. Vance, and Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) — and ask: What’s up with this dude? He can’t possibly be for real, can he? How did he get like this?

Conservatives have long joked about the “strange new respect” that some Republicans receive if they’re perceived to have shifted left. So call these stories the “strange new disrespect” genre.

In these pieces, the candidates or their proxies often strain for some reasonable ideological explanation for their journey to the dark side. The recent Washington Post profile explaining the “radicalization” of Vance, for example, quotes writer Rod Dreher on why the Hillbilly Elegy author went from being a Never-Trump conservative to lobbing Twitter bombs at retired generals: “Trump remained Trump — but the Left went berserk.” And the stories are often filled with a sense of betrayal from old colleagues and friends. “I absolutely could not have predicted that the bright, idealistic, clear-thinking young student that I knew would follow this path,” a former mentor to Josh Hawley lamented after the senator helped fist-pump the Jan. 6 insurrection into being.

Hey, maybe these candidates really do have complicated stories and they genuinely have taken an honest intellectual journey toward Trumpism, simply because it makes the most sense to them. It’s possible, right? But the simpler Occam’s razor explanation here is that Hawley, Mandel, and Vance are just really ambitious and doing whatever it takes — no matter how ugly — to get the power they crave. Seems obvious, but it can get buried under all the other ideas.

The Founders knew a little something about ambitious men. While they drafted the Constitution — and as they explained themselves in The Federalist Papers — they obsessed over how to contain those ambitions and make sure the new nation’s institutions could withstand demagoguery and corruption. Thus the whole checks-and-balances thing. “Ambition must be made to counteract ambition,” they wrote. For more than 200 years it worked, more or less.

These days, not so much. American democracy is fragile at the moment, thanks largely to Trump, an ambitious man who cannot tolerate being counteracted — not by other ambitious people, and certainly not by a majority of voters. Now other Republicans are taking his cue. Ambition is amplifying ambition, not counteracting it. We’re all worse off as a result.

Of all the “strange new disrespect” pieces I’ve read over the last year, I think my favorite was a story about Vance, written last summer by Molly Ball of Time magazine. In a possibly-unguarded moment, Vance indicated to Ball that his decision to evolve from his earlier anti-Trump conservatism was born of a desire to win support from Republican voters. Trump is “the leader of this movement, and if I actually care about these people and the things I say I care about, I need to just suck it up and support him,” he said.

That’s a false choice — and a grudging one at that — but it makes more sense than the idea that those awful Democrats goaded him into a reversal of his previously stated principles. He’s ambitious. It’s not that complicated.

Daily Beast

Putin Orders Troops Into Ukraine After Shocking Declaration

Barbie Latza Nadeau, Allison Quinn, Noor Ibrahim – February 21, 2022

Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered Russian “peacekeeping” troops to the pro-Kremlin regions of Luhansk and Donetsk after unilaterally declaring that the two chunks of Eastern Ukraine should be considered independent states.

The dramatic escalation, which many fear could lead to all-out war, followed an address to his nation on Monday, in which the Russian president formally announced “the immediate recognition” of the pro-Kremlin regions of Luhansk and Donetsk—which stretch over 6,500 miles—as independent of Ukraine.

In a decree released shortly after his speech, the president ordered Russia’s defense ministry to “ensure ….. implementation by the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation of functions to maintain peace on the territory of the Donetsk People’s Republic.” Reuters later reported that Putin had prepared treaties with leaders of the so-called independent states, granting Russia the right to build military bases therein.

Before his formal recognition of the break-away states, Putin had spent the better part of his address lambasting Ukraine, NATO, and the U.S. for failing to address “security threats” raised by the Kremlin in recent months. He baselessly accused Ukrainian forces of perpetuating “genocide” and blamed Kyiv for any future “continuation of bloodshed” in those regions.

“If Ukraine was to join NATO it would serve as a direct threat to the security of Russia,” the Russian leader said. He undermined Ukraine as a country that has “never had a tradition of genuine statehood,” accused the U.S. of “blackmailing” Russia with threats of sanctions, and warned of Western efforts “to try to convince us over and over again that NATO is a peace-loving and purely defensive alliance,” adding, “we know the real value of such words.”

Though Putin did not directly address growing fears that Russia is planning to invade Ukraine, he appeared to be laying the groundwork for war by characterizing a potential Russian military offensive as an act of self-defense. Moscow “has every right to take retaliatory measures to ensure its own security,” he said. That is exactly what we will do.”

The move follows a spectacularly bizarre meeting by Russia’s Security Council, where Putin appeared like a mob boss testing his underlings, as officials, one after another, spoke out in favor of recognizing the self-proclaimed republics.

Mysterious ‘Z’ Painted on Russian Tanks Closing in on Ukraine Border

It was another grotesque spectacle on a day when the drum beats of war grew deafening. The aggressive and totally unjustified territorial claim followed a series of apparent false-flag operations where the Russians tried to blame Ukrainian forces for a number of attacks.

The Russian military claimed that five so-called “saboteurs” were assassinated early Monday after crossing into Russia from Ukraine.

The report mirrors almost exactly what the Biden administration warned could be “false flags” or trigger points that Russia will respond to as a pretext to launch its invasion.

“As a result of clashes, five people who violated the Russian border from a group of saboteurs were killed,” the Russian military said in a statement, according to Reuters. No Russians died in the alleged border infraction. Russia also said Ukraine had destroyed a border outpost used by the FSB (Federal Security Service) in early morning shelling.

Russia has also claimed in recent days that Ukrainian forces are staging attacks on Luhansk and Donetsk.

Ukraine has denied any such incursion or attacks took place. The Minister of Foreign affairs, Dmytro Kuleba, took to Twitter Monday to dismiss the claims with big red ‘X’s denying an attack on Donetsk or Luhansk, or that it sent saboteurs over the Russian border, or that it shelled Russian territory or border crossings.

After the latest round of supposed Ukrainian aggression, the leaders of the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics published video appeals pleading with Putin to recognize their independence, as they claimed Ukrainian forces were preparing to attack.

Despite a flurry of last-minute attempts at diplomacy—including talk of a summit between presidents Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin—all hell seems soon to break loose in Ukraine.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in an address to the nation that the country was prepared for any outcome.

“We are committed to the peaceful and diplomatic path, we will follow it and only it,” he said. “But we are on our own land, we are not afraid of anything and anybody, we owe nothing to no one, and we will give nothing to no one.”

Referring not to Moscow but to the prospect of assistance from the West, he added, “It’s important right now to see who our true friends are.”

The U.N. Security Council met for an emergency session on Monday evening, with Ukraine’s envoy to the world body expressing frustration that no action would be taken. Russia, after all, has veto power on the Council.

“The United Nations is sick. That’s a matter of fact. It’s been hit by the virus spread by Kremlin,” Sergiy Kyslytsya said.

Monday, Biden’s national security advisor Jake Sullivan warned that Russia’s imminent attack on Ukraine will be “extremely violent” and that it could begin literally at any moment.

“We believe that any military operation of this size, scope and magnitude of what we believe the Russians are planning will be extremely violent,” he told NBC Today show on a frenzied circuit of morning TV on President’s Day. “It will cost the lives of Ukrainians and Russians, civilians and military personnel alike.”

He told the network that new intelligence garnered in recent days suggest “an even greater form of brutality because this will not simply be some conventional war between two armies.” He went on to say Russia will target the Ukrainian people “to repress them, to crush them, to harm them.”

He then appeared on ABC Good Morning America, telling them that “all signs look like President Putin and the Russians are proceeding with a plan to execute a major military invasion of Ukraine.” That plan was bolstered over the weekend with Russian military hardware painted with an ominous white “Z” lettering rolling toward strategic points along the Ukrainian frontier. “We have seen just in the last 24 hours further moves of Russian units to the border with no other good explanation other than they’re getting in position to attack.”

Over the weekend, French President Emmanuel Macron invited Biden and Putin to a summit, which Biden signaled he would attend on the condition that Russian not invade Ukraine, but the Kremlin called reports of any such meeting “premature.”

As Sullivan reiterated that any attack on Ukraine would be met with the “full force of American and Allied might,” unsubstantiated news reports of ceasefire infractions along the border continue unabated. Video posted on Twitter showed a fuel station burning on the front line in Eastern Ukraine as civilians fled against a backdrop of gunfire.

The European Union, which will feel the impact of an eventual war first-hand, approved an emergency package with $1.36 billion to support Ukraine through loans, according to a statement by the European Union Council released Monday. “It intends to provide swift support in a situation of acute crisis and to strengthen Ukraine’s resilience.”

Reuters

A Ukrainian reservist learns fighting skills she hopes never to use

Maria Tsvetkova – February 20, 2022

Alisa, a media relations specialist, poses with a gun for a picture at her home near Kyiv. Alisa takes part in a combat skills training conducted by the Territorial Defense Forces near Kyiv

KYIV (Reuters) – Alisa, a 38-year-old Ukrainian with an office job in the capital, had always enjoyed sport shooting and joined a local territorial defence unit more than a year ago to acquire combat skills.

Now she is worried she might have to use those skills in a real war with Russia.

“People die, that’s horrible. Even worse is when you think not just about your life but about the life of a 7-year-old child,” she said in an interview with Reuters in her house outside Kyiv while her son, Timur, watched cartoons.

“I realise he can be hurt because of silliness of the neighbouring country, not a brother country anymore,” said Alisa, who asked to be identified only by her first name.

Russia’s build-up of tens of thousands of troops near the borders with Ukraine has stirred fears in Ukraine and Western countries that it is poised to invade, something Moscow denies.

Alisa joined the territorial defence forces a year and a half ago, earlier than many. In January, as the Russian troops massed, the government said it wanted to build reserve batallions up into a corps of up to 130,000 people.

Alisa said she has seen dozens of new people joining the training sessions each Saturday.

She began this weekend as she often does, putting on camouflage fatigues, taking one of her two small-calibre guns she keeps at home and heading to a training ground – a pine forest with sand dunes, an old railway and few abandoned construction sites.

Along with dozens of other volunteers, mostly men in their late 30s and 40s with civilian jobs, she then spent seven hours either with her weapon on the ground or on guard as a part of a small patrol tasked to protect a concrete building from enemy saboteurs.

She said the fact she has at least basic training is some comfort.

“If, God forbid, a war starts … I know how to move from an unsafe point A to a safe point B,” Alisa said.

“I understand how to do if I’m under fire. I know how to help Timur, friends, neighbours if they are caught in fire.”

EARLY STARTS

Alisa, a motorcycle fan, has visited more 50 countries along with her husband, also a biker. She is a media relations specialist at an organization that works in cyber security.

She tries not to skip training sessions herself even if she badly needs rest at the end of the working week.

“If we had peace time I would miss training if I was tired but now I make myself get up early for a session because now it’s needed more than ever,” she said.

Alisa said she likes gaining new skills that have built her self-confidence and courage, but hopes never to have to use them.

“I feel anger, hatred and I have my plans cancelled. It’s all surreal for me and I don’t get how such silly things can happen in a civilized world in the 21st century,” she said.

(Reporting by Maria Tsvetkova; Editing by Frances Kerry)

The New York Times

Putin’s Baseless Claims of Genocide Hint at More Than War

Max Fisher – February 20, 2022

Moscow, in another escalation toward a possible invasion of Ukraine, is issuing a growing drumbeat of accusations, all without evidence, that center on a single word.

“What is happening in the Donbas today is genocide,” President Vladimir Putin of Russia said Tuesday, referring to Ukraine’s east.

Senior Russian officials and state media have since echoed Putin’s use of “genocide.” Russian diplomats circulated a document to the United Nations Security Council accusing Ukraine of “exterminating the civilian population” in its east.

On Friday, Russia-backed separatists, who control parts of Ukraine’s east, claimed that Ukraine’s military was about to attack, and ordered women and children to evacuate. Extensive coverage on Russian state media portrayed Russian minorities as fleeing a tyrannical Ukrainian military, and President Joe Biden called such incidents ploys fabricated as pretext for a Russian invasion.

The Kremlin has long asserted that Ukraine’s government persecutes ethnic Russians and Russian-speaking citizens. The charge, backed by lurid and false tales of anti-Russian violence, served as justification in 2014 for Russia’s annexation of Crimea and its invasion of eastern Ukraine.

The recent resurgence of such language, now voiced directly by Putin, indicates what analysts and Western governments say may again be a prelude to invasion.

But invocations of genocide represent more than just a superficial casus belli. They reflect Moscow’s sincere belief that, in a world dominated by a hostile West, it is the rightful protector of Russian populations throughout the former Soviet republics.

In that worldview, any break from Moscow’s influence within its sphere constitutes an attack on the Russian people as a whole — particularly in Ukraine, which Putin considers effectively Russian.

Claims of genocide, then, are a way to assert Russia’s sovereignty throughout an ethnic Russian empire that extends well beyond its formal borders — and a right to control that empire with force.

Clashes of Civilizations

“There’s a long history of use and abuse of genocide rhetoric in post-Soviet countries,” said Matthew Kupfer, an analyst based in the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, who has studied Moscow’s use of such claims.

Since the Soviet Union fell, and with it the ideological basis of its constituent states, those countries have reorganized their identities around the memory of World War II.

Genocide, as a symbol of the Nazis, became shorthand for anything deemed “absolute evil,” Kupfer said, making opposition to that evil a national imperative.

In the turmoil of 1990s Russia, nationalist writers like Sergei Glazyev won large audiences by calling Western policies an “economic genocide” against the Russian race.

And when relations between Moscow and some of its former satellites broke down in the mid-2000s, charges of genocide became the language of confrontation.

Pro-democracy uprisings in several former Soviet republics installed new governments, which championed their newly dominant non-Russian majorities.

Ukraine’s leaders, for instance, moved to elevate the Ukrainian language’s official status starting in 2004 and to label a devastating famine in the 1930s as a deliberate Soviet campaign of genocide.

Some Russian nationalists returned the charge, accusing those new governments of plotting to marginalize or even exterminate the Russian minorities within their borders.

As Russian nationalists rose in influence — in 2012, Putin appointed Glazyev as a senior adviser on regional matters — a view took hold in Moscow that any threat to its influence over former Soviet republics imperiled the Russian race as a whole.

In 2014, Ukrainians again revolted, initially over their president’s decision to reject a trade deal with the European Union, in favor of one with Russia.

The protests snowballed into demands to turn away from Russia and embrace a fully separate Ukrainian identity, which confirmed Moscow’s worst fears of a threat to Russian influence. Kremlin allies again leveled accusations of genocide, at first mostly as a generic expression of condemnation.

This became more than rhetorical as Moscow exploited Ukraine’s demographic divisions, in which Russian speakers were, at first, wary of Kyiv’s moves toward Europe.

Russia invaded the mostly Russian region of Crimea and backed militants in Ukraine’s mostly Russophone east, presenting itself as protecting populations to which it held a special responsibility.

Sectarian division served Moscow’s agenda, which meant that so did the specter of Ukrainian atrocities against the Russian minority.

State media saturated Russian homes with false stories, including ones about mass graves filled with Russian minority civilians and a 3-year-old boy crucified by Ukrainian forces that had retaken a separatist-held town. Russian citizens’ support for Moscow’s incursions surged.

The Russian World

Putin, seizing on Moscow’s successes acting as protector of Russians in Ukraine, began energetically championing what he termed the “Russian world.” In his telling, it is a sphere of influence rooted in ethnicity — an ethnicity that faces continuing threats of genocide.

This new mission solves several problems for Putin. It presents Russia’s interventions in neighboring states, typically to weaken unfriendly governments or prop up friendly ones, as defensive.

It tells Russian citizens, who have suffered under eight years of Western-led sanctions in retaliation for Russia’s aggression toward Ukraine, that they are sacrificing for a heroic struggle akin to World War II. It gives them a great empire to once more feel pride in.

And, maybe most important, it provides an ideological justification for a government, otherwise associated with corruption, that offers citizens fewer rights or opportunities.

As Moscow’s challenges have grown, so have its claims of a great struggle to protect the Russian race, often centered on Ukraine.

In 2015, as Russia’s economy cratered, Putin criticized Ukraine’s efforts to isolate Russia-backed separatists: “It smells of genocide,” he said. His government pledged to investigate the “genocide of the Russian-speaking population” in Ukraine.

And, in 2018, amid diplomatic crises that left Russia internationally isolated, a Kremlin-allied lawmaker accused Ukraine of seeking “a genocide against Russian people in the Donbas” while Russia’s foreign minister warned of “genocide through sanctions.”

The claims were hardly bluster alone. Many coincided with a military escalation in Ukraine, either by Russian armed forces or pro-Moscow separatists.

But each round also revealed a Kremlin growing steadily more paranoid and confrontational as its sphere of influence has come under greater pressure from crisis in Belarus, an uprising in Kazakhstan and an increasingly hard-line stance toward Moscow in Ukraine.

An Uncertain Escalation

In December, with Russia’s military beginning to build up on Ukraine’s borders, Putin repeated a familiar justification, saying the situation in Ukraine’s east “looks like genocide.”

“Claims of ‘genocide’ of Russian speakers in eastern Ukraine have been a constant background hum on Russian state propaganda channels” ever since, said Alexey Kovalev, a Russian journalist who heads a fact-checking organization.

But, unlike in 2014, Kovalev has written, Russians do not appear to be responding. There has been little of the past groundswell of outrage or sympathy.

Russian views of Ukraine, once fiercely hostile, are 45% favorable and 43% negative, a recent poll found. Although Russians widely backed the 2014 invasions of Ukraine, they express little enthusiasm for another.

“People are kind of burned out from Ukraine being on TV all the time,” Kupfer said. Although state media has pushed some tales similar to those in 2014, it has done so more sparingly.

“It may simply be that they recognize war will not be popular with the public,” Kupfer added of the Kremlin.

Tellingly, Russian claims of genocide during this crisis have often been aimed abroad, rather than at home, and come from figures with diplomatic weight.

In a Facebook post Thursday, Russia’s ambassador to the United States cited long-debunked “atrocities” in Ukraine to accuse the United States of abetting “a policy to force the Russian-speaking population out of their current places of residence.”

Thomas de Waal, a Russia expert for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, called such high-level comments “worrying” and said they indicated an “official rhetorical escalation.”

As with so many of Russia’s recent provocations, de Waal said, it is difficult to say whether such statements are intended to telegraph, or merely feint at, a Russian invasion of Ukraine.

In either case, the escalation may reflect the national mission increasingly central to Putin’s Russia: a strong, defiant protector of Russians abroad who will never be safe without it.

Associated Press

Iran returns donated vaccines because they were made in US

February 21, 2022

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran has returned 820,000 doses of coronavirus vaccines donated by Poland because they were manufactured in the United States, state TV reported Monday.

TV quoted Mohammad Hashemi, an official in the country’s Health Ministry, as saying that Poland donated about a million doses of the British-Swedish AstraZeneca vaccine to Iran.

“But when the vaccines arrived in Iran, we found out that 820,000 doses of them which were imported from Poland were from the United States,” he said.

Hashemi said “after coordination with the Polish ambassador to Iran, it was decided that the vaccines would be returned.”

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has final say on all state matters, in 2020 rejected any possibility of American or British vaccines entering the country, calling them “forbidden.”

Iran now only imports Western vaccines that are not produced in the U.S. or Britain.

Video: Iran’s leader gets locally made coronavirus vaccine. 

Hard-liners swept the parliament and railed against American-made vaccines even as daily deaths shattered records.

Iran is struggling with its sixth wave of coronavirus infections and authorities say the aggressive omicron variant is now dominant in the country.

With more than 135,000 total deaths from COVID-19, according to official numbers, Iran has the highest national death toll in the Middle East. It says it has vaccinated some 90% of its population above age 18 with two shots, although only 37% of that group has had a third shot.

Iran has relied on Sinopharm, the state-backed Chinese vaccine, but offers citizens a smorgasbord of other shots to choose from — Oxford-AstraZeneca, Russia’s Sputnik V, Indian firm Bharat’s Covaxin and its homegrown COVIran Barekat shot. British-Swedish AstraZeneca makes up a substantial amount of Iran’s inoculations.

National Review

Russian Troops Have Orders to Launch Ukraine Invasion: Report

Caroline Downey – February 20, 2022

The U.S. has obtained intelligence that Russian officers have received orders to launch an invasion into Ukraine. CBS News national security correspondent David Martin confirmed the information during an appearance on Face the Nation Sunday.

The intelligence suggests that Russian commanders are making military preparations and “doing everything that American commanders would do once they got the order to proceed,” Martin said.

Earlier Sunday, both the State department and Pentagon said the U.S. was still pulling all the diplomatic stops to attempt to de-escalate the Russia-Ukraine crisis as an incursion becomes increasingly probable.

Speaking on CNN’s State of the Union, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that Russian president Vladimir Putin’s positioning of forces in Ukraine’s immediate geographical neighborhood indicted an impending incursion.- ADVERTISEMENT -https://s.yimg.com/rq/darla/4-10-1/html/r-sf-flx.html

“He’s followed the script almost to the letter,” he said.

During a presentation before the United Nations Security Council Thursday, Blinken noted that the U.S. had expected Russia to manufacture a crisis that could serve as an pretext for intervention. Russia just extended drills with its approximately 30,000 troops in Belarus past Sunday, when joint military exercises were scheduled to end. On Sunday, the Belarusian defense minister cited growing tensions in eastern Ukraine as the reason “to continue the inspection of reaction forces.” As recently as last week, Russia had not planned to prolong its military presence in Belarus.

“As we described it, everything leading up to the actual invasion appears to be taking place: all these false flag operations, all of these provocations to create justifications,” he said.

Blinken said that the U.S. would try to negotiate with Russia up until the last minute, however.

“We believe President Putin has made the decision, but until the tanks are actually rolling, and the planes are flying, we will use every opportunity and every minute we have to see if diplomacy can still dissuade President Putin from carrying this forward,” he added.

“We will do everything we can to try to prevent it before it happens, but equally we’re prepared, if he does follow through, to impose massive consequences, to provide for Ukraine’s ongoing defense and to bolster NATO,” Blinken said.

Pentagon press secretary John Kirby said Sunday the U.S. was running a “full-court press” to deter Putin, exhausting all negotiation avenues to convince him to change his mind.

Responding to questions about why the U.S. has not imposed pre-emptive sanctions on Russia, Kirby noted that such action if used prematurely could provoke what they are trying to prevent. “If you punish somebody for something they haven’t done yet, then they might as well just go ahead and do it,” he said.

On Friday, President Joe Biden told reporters he was confident Putin had made his decision and that invasion was imminent in the “coming days.” Vice President Kamala Harris backed up this belief Sunday.

Daily Beast

Mysterious ‘Z’ Painted on Russian Tanks Closing in on Ukraine Border

Barbie Latza Nadeau – February 20, 2022

While the world continues to watch Russian troops mass and maneuver at Ukraine’s vast borders, an esoteric group of investigative journalists and military experts are focusing on an ominous “Z” that has started appearing on military hardware heading towards Ukraine.

Video posted on social media has shown hundreds more tanks, communications vehicles and rocket launchers bearing down on the border. Many of those captured on camera have been painted with a “Z” inside a large white square.

Bellingcat reporter Aric Toler, says his group has been monitoring Russian military symbols for the last eight years, but they have “no idea what they [the Zs] are” and haven’t seen them before. “So, assume the worst, I guess/fear,” he wrote on Twitter.

Some, like Russian defense policy guru Rob Lee, whose social media followers have grown exponentially thanks to his keen dissemination of what’s going on, believes the symbol may refer to contingents assigned to Ukraine regions. “It appears Russian forces near the border are painting markers, in this case “Z”, on vehicles to identify different task forces or echelons,” he tweeted this weekend.

Others have speculated Russia is borrowing a play used in World War II by allies who used symbols to avoid friendly fire accidents since most Ukraine tanks are Soviet era and easily confused with Russia’s fleet. There is also speculation that the “Z” could stand for Russian enemy no. 1: Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky, who has vowed he won’t be drawn into action by the saber rattling around his country.

To further confuse matters, “Z” is not a letter in Russia’s Cyrillic alphabet.

While the phenomenon of what some have dubbed the “Zorro Squad” is relatively new, the threat of a Russian invasion of the sovereign nation of Ukraine is starting to grow old. Late Saturday, a massive explosion blew up a Luhansk gas pipeline in eastern Ukraine in an incident the head of the company called “sabotage.”

Bus Full of Orphans Makes Terrifying Getaway as Russian War Looms

After attending the Munich Security Conference, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson warned on Sunday that Europe was about to face its “biggest war since 1945,” claiming that Russian president Vladimir Putin’s plan “has already in some senses begun.”

“You’re looking at not just an invasion through the east, but coming down from the north, down from Belarus and actually encircling Kyiv,” Johnson told the BBC. “People need to understand the sheer cost in human life that could entail.”

Politico

Finland’s president sees changes in Putin: ‘It was a different kind of behavior’

Catherine Kim – February 20, 2022

Finnish President Sauli Niinistö said Sunday that he’s recently seen changes in Russian President Vladimir Putin’s behavior, saying that he now sounds more “decisive” than in the past.

Niinistö, who has been in close contact with Putin, recalled an exchange the two shared on the phone. During one of the regular calls, Niinistö said he pushed back against Putin by standing up for his country’s sovereignty. That is when Putin switched tones, he said, then began to “officially” read his list of demands.

“That was a change in his behavior, and I want to guess, and from that I guess that he wants to be very decisive, wants to sound like one. It was a different kind of behavior,” he said during an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

For decades, Finland has kept a delicate balance in its relationship with Russia, having been invaded by the Soviet Union in 1939. The country, which borders Russia, stayed scrupulously neutral throughout the Cold War, becoming neither part of the Warsaw Pact nor of NATO.

That delicate balance, however, might be tipped if Russia were to invade Ukraine, which President Joe Biden and others throughout the West have painted as an imminent threat. While Niinistö emphasized his country wasn’t planning on a dramatic change in its relationship with Russia, he suggested Russia’s actions are making Finnish people rethink joining NATO.

“A lot depends, also, what actually happens in Ukraine and how Russia is going to behave after that,” he said. “If Russia sees a success story for them, that makes them more dangerous.”

However, he emphasized that Finland doesn’t feel threatened by Russia as of now.

“Finland is a stable democracy. We are a member of the European Union and part of the West,” he said. “We are not afraid of Russian tanks suddenly crossing the Finnish border.”